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Tour de France history: Coppi triumphs on debut for first Giro/Tour double
‘Coppi and Bartali in the Tour! What’s more, in the same team!’ So began a L’Équipe cover story two days before the start of the 1949 Tour de France. ‘It does not seem possible that these two great champions so totally opposed in Italy agree to ride side by side, in the same jersey, to share the same team members of Italy’s squadra and, above all, agree to lend a hand – if necessary.’
Much has been written about one of cycling’s greatest rivalries, one that would divide Italy into Bartaliano and Coppiano. Gino Bartali was the dogged and devout Catholic; Fausto Coppi the charismatic and graceful star whose extra-marital affair would provoke the wrath of the Vatican. Coppi would lobby for Bartali’s exclusion from national teams; Bartali would break into Coppi’s room in an effort to find the secrets of his success.
By 1949 the intensity of the rivalry was growing and, with the Tour de France run in national teams, the Italy team manager, Alfredo Binda, had a decision to make. Binda, who himself had endured a famous rivalry with Costante Girardengo during his own cycling career, knew he really needed both men in his Tour team.
Bartali was the defending Tour champion but Coppi, who had not yet ridden in the race, was now clearly the dominant rider. To leave one of them out would be unthinkable, but just months previously they had refused to work together at the World Championships in Valkenburg. Neither had wanted to react to an attack by Belgium’s Alberic Schotte for fear of helping the other, and eventually both abandoned.
‘We turned around together, without exchanging a word, not very proud of ourselves,’ Coppi said of that day.
Binda could not risk a repeat at the Tour so in late February called the men to a meeting in Chiavari, a town on the coast of Italy’s Ligurian Sea. The result was an agreement that both would ride at the Tour with a commitment that they would not race against each other.
‘The Chiavari Pact… insurance against a new Valkenburg!’ reported an excited L’Équipe, but after Coppi crushed Bartali four months later at the Giro, winning by more than 20 minutes, the accord fell apart. It took another meeting and another agreement, reached with the Tour just weeks away, to get both men to the start line.
Coppi crafts cycling history
As it turned out, the Tour started poorly for both men. By Stage 5 the pair sat nearly 18 minutes behind French race leader Jacques Marinelli. Then, on that stage to Saint-Malo, Coppi was brought down in a crash. His bike was wrecked and he had to wait for a spare. When Binda arrived and told him to get going, Coppi refused.
‘I want to go home; the Tour is now lost,’ he said. ‘Don’t even talk about it,’ replied Binda, who, through a combination of encouragement and thinly veiled threats, finally coerced his rider back into the race.
That night, Coppi’s spirit was shot. He was now nearly 37 minutes behind Marinelli and more than 13 minutes behind Bartali. There was no guarantee Coppi would have the motivation to start the next day and so the team rallied.
‘We all made him go on,’ Coppi’s teammate at the race, Ettore Milano, tells author William Fotheringham in Fallen Angel. ‘We got round him and made him continue in the race.’
Three days later Coppi recorded his first Tour stage win, claiming a 92km time-trial into La Rochelle. He led at every checkpoint and took more than seven minutes back on Marinelli and three minutes on Bartali. And so started Coppi’s march up the rankings.
By the time the race reached the Alps on Stage 16, Coppi was tenth but still 14 minutes from the race lead, now held by Fiorenzo Magni, who was riding for Italy’s B Team. Bartali was ninth, a minute and a half ahead of Coppi.
On the stage from Cannes to Briançon, over the Allos, Vars and Izoard, Bartali and Coppi escaped together. Their mutual suspicion remained high, though, and on the Izoard their pace dropped as each became concerned about the other taking advantage.
Binda again laid down the law, stressing the damage another Valkenburg would do to their reputations. The pair listened and rode together to the finish, each waiting for the other as Coppi slid on mud and Bartali punctured. Bartali, who turned 35 that day, took the stage win and the yellow jersey – remarkably the third time he celebrated his birthday with a win at the Tour.
The great handover
The next day, over the Montgenèvre, Mont Cenis, Iseran and Petit-St-Bernard passes, it was Coppi’s turn to taste success. Bartali was the first of the two men over all the climbs bar the Iseran, but when he punctured and then later crashed on the descent of the Petit-St-Bernard, Coppi went on alone to win the stage and lift the jersey from his rival’s shoulders.
Over the years, stories have varied as to whether Binda and/or Bartali told Coppi to continue alone that day. Certainly, Bartali appeared phlegmatic immediately afterwards, saying, ‘The main thing is that it’s Coppi who has the jersey, isn’t it? I’ve already won the Tour twice. He hasn’t. He got his chance today.’
After destroying the field in a 137km time-trial to Nancy on the penultimate day, Coppi finally stood in Paris as the overall winner by nearly 11 minutes. He was already 29 years old but had won cycling’s most important race at his first attempt. He had also become the first rider to win the celebrated Giro/Tour double, a feat he would repeat three years later.
‘The double requires strength of character, an ability to perform on the key days,’ Raphaël Geminiani says in Fallen Angel. ‘Only the greats of cycling have it in them.’
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